My monthly crush? Malcolm Middleton’s "pop album for people who hate pop music"

I posted this a few weeks back on You Can Take The Boy Outta Brooklyn…, but because the album’s been in constant rotation on my iPod since I first got ahold of it, I thought it deserved more props, so here it is:

My monthly crush is a new, random find: Malcolm Middleton, a singer/songwriter from Falkirk, Scotland, who once was a member of Arab Strap. I was poking around the NME’s website this week & stumbled upon a review of his new album A Brighter Beat. They described it as “a pop album for people who hate pop music,” which sounded pretty great to me, so I tracked it down through iTunes, listened to a few song samples & was instantly sold.

Middleton’s deep voice and thick Scottish brogue is a treat to listen to, and his songs are mature, dark (my favorite song title: “Death Love Depression Love Death”), and impressively personal (the sketches of the dead relationship in “F*ck It, I Love You” are intimate and fantastic). Musically, it sounds like Badly Drawn Boy started arranging tunes for a the Buzzcocks; the songs veer from deceptively sunny pop to aggressive punk, and they’re uniformly excellent. Here are my two favorite tunes from the album, both featuring a female vocalist who I can’t identify but whose voice reminds me pleasantly of Stars’ Amy Millan. That’s the biggest downside to digital music — the lack of liner notes — but that’s another topic for another day. Enjoy:

Download: Malcolm Middleton, “F*ck It, I Love You” (mp3)
(Right-click/control-click link to download)

Download: Malcolm Middleton, “A Brighter Beat” (mp3)
(Right-click/control-click link to download)

Like what you hear? Download the whole album at the iTunes Store.